By Anna Battista
David Scott's career started with the band Chewy Racoon, who released in 1985 the single "Don't Touch Me" and was soon after it dropped by the label they were signed to, Phonogram. After Chewy Racoon, Scott started with Jim Gash a new band, Hearts & Minds, a year later, featuring a line-up of Scott, Gash, Robert McGinlay, Chris Keenan and Jeanette Burns. The band signed to CBS in 1986, released a single and split. Hearts & Minds resurfaced later on with a new line-up featuring Scott, Gash, Mil Stricevic and Brian McAlpine, but the band changed its name when an identically named American groupsigned to A&M. Exit Hearts & Minds, enter The Pearlfishers. Scott's new band first debuted in 1992 with the EP "Sacred", followed by five albums, the latest in 2003. Since 1985, many things happened in the music world, the Internet in particular changed the way to create, release and sell music dramatically, but what has changed for David? "Between 1984 and 1988, I had two major record deals, one with Phonogram and one with CBS and two major publishing deals with Virgin and EMI Music," David remembers, "that was my first introduction to the music business. At the time it was still just about possible to do good music on major labels, and I was a major label kid, I held the hope then that I could maybe do my own kind of music but with great success. For me things have changed quite a lot: now I deem myself lucky that I can release records and have a bit of success, but I don't kid myself for a minute that it is perfect. For example, the reviews for 'A Sunflower at Christmas' have been fabulous so far and people seem to like it a lot, but I can't get it in the shops, because Universal, Columbia, EMI, Virgin and so on, literally bought spaces and shelves in record shops for Christmas. Many people think that in many ways independents are more powerful nowadays, but that's not true. What has changed and has become better is the communication network: usually when you have a major record deal you have money and the potential to sell to lots of people, but as soon as the label decides not to release your record or to drop you, then you are cut off from that. One of the great things of these days is that you can actually get feedback from people: if you look at the guest book on The Pearlfishers' website, for example, you'll see that there are fans in the Philippines, Canada, America, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Poland. That's exciting and it's a great thing for an artist, because it's then that you know you're finally reaching out to people.